Wow! Yeah, right.

Amazing.

That's the only word that can describe the feeling that I had more than a decade ago when I realized that people were lining up in front of Best Buy to purchase the newly released Windows 95.

Twelve years later I find myself wondering if these same people are standing outside once again anxiously awaiting the latest operating system release from Redmond.

If they are, then they are probably not going to feel the same crush of excitement as midnight approaches because the lines will be much shorter this time around. Despite much fanfare from the folks at Microsoft, the vast majority of people that I know are quite ambivalent about tomorrow's release.

Certainly none of them are going to wait in line at midnight just to be the first uber-geek to take the new OS for a spin. In fact, most of my friends have already been beta testing Vista for several months.

Without a doubt, society has evolved from novice computer users to savvy technofiends who are so technically advanced that a new operating system has become as exciting as turning on a light switch.

I think that there are several reasons for this change in attitude. First of all, our society has more important things to worry about. The world was a much simpler place back in 1995. The Internet era was still in its infancy and Google wasn't even a gleam in the eyes of Sergey Brin or Larry Page. In those days, a high speed Internet connection was a 56k modem.

Now, you can purchase Vista on-line and download the operating system directly to your computer. There simply isn't any reason for uber-geeks to stand outside in the frigid Wisconsin winter.

I think that the primary reason for this change, however, is that society has become so overloaded with technology that a new operating system is not really all that exciting. Granted, Windows Vista appears to contain a wonderful user interface and some fairly solid functionality, but on the whole it doesn't really do that much more for the average computer user than Windows XP.

Almost everyone I know is more excited with advances in cool technology such as the iPhone, the Blackjack, the Wii, and the iPod. In fact, many of my friends have recently gone to the dark side and jumped on the Apple bandwagon.

A new Microsoft operating system just doesn't have the excietment that it used to have. The changes that accompany Vist are revolutionary in some respects, but they just aren't as jaw dropping as when we moved from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95.

As I've just seen on the news, there is a small group of stalwarts standing outside waiting for midnight. I commend those hearty souls for braving the frigid Wisconsin winter, but this time around I'm even more amazed that anyone would stand in line at midnight just to buy a new operating system.

Sorry Microsoft. There just isn't a Wow factor this time around.

Amazing.